Saturday, October 29, 2011

Liberal mayor of Oakland Jean Quan (D) has apparently gotten her mind right. Late last week, her office issued a statement to protesters that said protests would not be allowed between the hours of 10pm - 6am. A few days later, police enforced that directive rather successfully. Mayor Quan then had the police stand down and allowed the protesters to 're-occupy' Oakland. Now, in the wake of the injury to Scott Olsen (the anti-Semitic, Marine-hating, Marine-veteran, IVAW member), Quan has apparently decided it's time to apologize and grovel to the protesters.

Is it time to ask if this groveling is the result of pressure from the Obama administration?

Remember, Oakland is the old stomping ground of former Obama appointee Van Jones, who is basically the force behind this movement. Though Jones resigned as Green Jobs czar back in 2009, he has been with Center for American Progress ever since, so he is still an integral part of the crafting of Obama administration policy directives. The CAP was identified by TIME Magazine as Obama's 'Idea Factory' and the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration took its cues from CAP when it came to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill back in 2010. Also, let us not forget that Obama's closest adviser - Valerie Jarrett - lauded the Jones' hiring in 2009 and even made reference to all the work he'd done in Oakland:

How about Rep. Barbara Lee (D), the congresswoman whose district includes Oakland? In addition to being a registered member with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caucus, she has a rather interesting history with Van Jones that includes a mutual connection to the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) according to 2009 article by Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media. Kincaid also posted a portion of Lee's statement relative to the Jones appointment to the Obama administration:

“I am so very pleased that Van Jones, a constituent, friend and strong advocate for green jobs has been chosen to be a special advisor to the White House Council on Economic Quality…"

It was just this past September 29th that Jones warned everyone to 'hold on to your seats' because October was going to be America's equivalent to the Arab Spring. Apparently, in an effort to make that statement as literal as possible, one of the people behind Egypt's tech revolution - Ahmed Maher - was brought in as an adviser to Occupy Wall Street. He was even interviewed by Think Progress, which is basically the same organization at which Jones is a fellow (CAP). Jones is apparently even exploiting children for advantage. He tweeted an alleged witness account that rubber bullets were being fired at her while she walked a little girl away from the scene. Jones did not name this person and it smacks of a shameless attempt at exploitation of an incident based on hearsay, at best. This does nothing but enflame a volatile situation. Curiously, this is a tactic used consistently by Palestinians against Israelis. Anyone remember the case of Muhammad al-Dura, the boy whose death in 2000, was staged to make the Israelis look like villains?

Anyway, on Thursday, October 27th, Oakland mayor Jean Quan informed the public that the protesters would be allowed to re-occupy the city and on Friday, she doubled down by groveling to the protesters and issuing this shameless apology.

Question: What are the odds that Ms. Quan's mind was made right by Obama administration apparatchiks?